


no disguise

by erebones



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Aftercare, Anal Sex, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Devotion, Dom/sub, Explicit Consent, Let The Bullets Fly - Freeform, Light Bondage, M/M, Pining, Sensory Deprivation, Spanking, Terrible Metaphors, but only in the bedroom lol, dominant baze, i'm so sorry jiang wen for butchering your beautiful movie, implied/referenced violence and gore, it doesn't deserve this, pocky zhang and the queer bandits, spiritassassin 2017 exchange, submissive chirrut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 12:13:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10536231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erebones/pseuds/erebones
Summary: His chest feels tight and uncertain—not for this, but for the weight of his own silence. Words spoken to deaf ears mean nothing. They are like ash in his mouth, the leftovers of someone else’s cigarette. But he cannot say them when Chirrut’s ears are unstoppered; they stick in his throat, or he swallows them down, always afraid, always turning away. He is a fox forever running from its hounds.----------A Let the Bullet Fly/Rogue One fusion that got out of hand. The request was for "some nice bondage porn" and my brain saw the words "if you've ever seen a Jiang Wen or Donnie Yen movie..." and went off the rails. I hope that this is... even slightly what you wanted ahaha.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [humansandotherpeople](https://archiveofourown.org/users/humansandotherpeople/gifts).



> _There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not._  
>  -Francois de La Rochefoucauld
> 
>  
> 
> For those of you who haven't seen Let the Bullets Fly and have no idea what it's about, I hope this is still enjoyable. Here is a brief synopsis of the lead-in to this pile of insanity. 
> 
> Baze is a famous local bandit known as Pocky Zhang who prowls the Jedhan countryside, preying on the farthest-reaching tendrils of the Empire. He and his gang of ruffians (Jyn, Bodhi, Cassian, and Kay) are space versions of Robin Hood, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. But his “criminal” ways are put on hold when he finds himself posing as the incoming governor of Goose Town, a village in the middle of nowhere controlled by the oily, money-hungry Orson Krennic. Baze decides to use his new position to defeat Krennic and liberate Goose Town from its poverty. 
> 
> But it turns out that Baze isn’t the only one with the same goal. A blind holy man named Chirrut was passing through Goose Town on a pilgrimage when he discovered the plight of the locals. He decided to stay awhile and give free teachings about the Force, as well as training the younger and fitter people in the village how to defend themselves against Krennic’s troops. At first he thinks Baze is just another Krennic, seeking to gouge the poor out of every last credit before moving on to the next village; but time reveals the truth, and they band forces in order to bring their enemy down.

Light streams through the blinds in shades of blue, soft and muted in the last hours of dwindling day. On the bed, he is a picture, a painting done by a master—his limbs are long and golden on the sheets like the sun’s rays now gilding the streets of Goose Town, his hair dark as pitch on his head and under his arms where they’re pulled up above his head and tied, gently, with red silk. There is no need for a blindfold. His eyes, open or shut, are sightless, blue like the light of evening through the shutters, and when he blinks or sighs or smiles, they seem to glitter like a deep and endless pool of starlight.

Baze stands at the foot of the bed and watches him, spooling another length of red silk between his hands. The skin is rough with callouses and catches on the fine material, but the texture is addicting. Like the texture of his skin. _Chirrut_.

He lays so still and peaceful that Baze would think him dead if not for the metric rise and fall of his ribcage with every breath. And when he reaches out and lays one large hand on Chirrut’s ankle, brown and bruised against creamy golden skin, he _twitches_ , a live wire leaping at the touch of a spark. Baze tightens his grip by increments, following the rhythm of his breath. It picks up a little at the contact, but Chirrut does not move or speak. For reward, Baze loops the silk around his ankle and pulls the knot snug, but not too tight, tying the other end to the opposite bedpost. If Chirrut bruises tonight, it will be by his own hand.

“Dearest,” Baze murmurs, when the silk has been tightened to his satisfaction. Another piece lies waiting, draped over the end of the bed, but he takes his time reaching for it, instead tracing the lines of Chirrut’s leg where it’s stretched to its utmost length against the sheets. He’s so powerful, built like an ancient warrior rather than a monk. To see him so exposed and vulnerable is a rush like no other. “Will you not speak?”

Chirrut’s plush, perfect mouth curls into a slight smile, but he says nothing. He knows their game well enough by now to know that this is a trick question. From the very beginning he had requested no gags or bindings across his mouth— _the only power I humbly ask is the power to speak, or to hold my tongue if you require_ —and Baze was content to comply. As much as he would have enjoyed the vision of a leather strap cutting through his teeth, this has an appeal all its own. Chirrut _could_ speak, if he wished, and has, on the rare occasion that he elects to use his safeword. But the point is that he _doesn’t_ , not unless it’s absolutely necessary or he obtains explicit permission, and that, too, holds power.

Baze clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth and draws away, letting the last piece of red silk glide between his fingertips. “You are too smart for me, _tiánxīn._ Not so easy to catch out.” He traces a path with his finger up the inside of Chirrut’s leg, from unbound ankle to the seam of his thigh, right where his bollocks rest. Muscle twitches beneath the skin, but Baze pulls back and catches his ankle up in silk.

And finally he is fully bound. If Baze were feeling particularly creative he might fetch the soft linen rope he keeps with his other private things in a chest at the foot of the bed. But he is grown weary, these last few days. He can feel the grate of bone beneath his skin as if he were no more than a brittle doll tugged along on Krennic’s string—all his energy was poured into that deadly dance, unfolding day by day into some new parody of political drama until it reached the pinnacle, and tonight… tonight he longs to clear his mind. To pour himself into Chirrut, into pleasing him and wringing him dry, breaking him and putting him back together again. He will save the rope for another day.

“I am going to ask you some questions,” he says when all has been prepared. Incense smolders at the edges of the room, infusing the air with the smell of burnt spice, and the door is locked—Six and the others have been instructed not to interrupt except in case of grave emergency. They will not be disturbed. “You may answer yes or no. Do you understand?”

“Yes, _dà ren_.”

“Good.”

He works open the buttons of his shirt, rustling the cloth. Chirrut’s head shifts slightly on the pillow, turning toward him, and though the room is dimly lit, Baze can see a slight flush beginning to develop on his cheeks. He’s not hard, yet, but that will change.

“Are you comfortable?”

“Yes.”

“Do you feel safe?”

“Yes.”

“Do you wish to move further?”

Chirrut’s lips part, but no sound emerges, suspended in uncertainty. Baze leans his hip against the mattress and reaches out to stroke the notch at the base of his throat. “Do you wish to breathe?”

He swallows, and Baze can feel it, the convulsion of his esophagus all the way down. “Yes.”

“Do you wish to hear?”

Pause. Chirrut licks his lips. “No.”

Baze fetches cotton from the little engraved box in his private chest. The gleam of kyber crystal catches his eye, and he rubs a thumb against the plug consideringly before he lifts that, too, from its bed of velvet. He returns and begins twisting the cotton fluff into little cone shapes, but does not insert them yet. “Do you wish to be filled?”

“Yes.” No hesitation. “But only by you.”

Baze smiles and does not chastise him for the lapse. Instead he puts the plug aside and cups his chin, coaxing his head back for clear look at his face. “Do you remember your word?”

A little hiccupping breath. “Yes.”

“Good. Then let us begin.”

///

“Baze! _Baze!_ ”

Quick footsteps patter through the courtyard, and Baze looks up from his desk in time to watch Seven careening through the open door and into his… _office_. A generous term, he thinks, but it serves its purpose. Seven comes to attention and pushes his glasses up to sit perched on his forehead, gasping for breath.

“Baze—I mean, er, Governor. Sir.”

“What is it,” Baze sighs. None of them are used to this sort of deception, but Seven has taken to it worst of all. He will have to hold more lessons after dinner.

“Jyn—I mean, um, Six is fighting with someone in the street.”

“Oh, is that all.” He turns his eyes back to his work, but Seven doesn’t budge.

“Baze—Governor. It’s, um. She’s… _losing_.”

“ _What_.” Baze jumps to his feet, and Seven jumps, too, like a bird flushed from hiding. “What do you mean, she’s _losing_? Who is it, one of Krennic’s people?”

“N-n-no sir, I don’t think so. Some blind old monk. She tripped over his staff and he started chastising her in the street—”

Baze is already walking past him, brisk and furious, heels snapping a military tattoo on the courtyard’s aged cobblestones. Seven hurries after him on anxious feet.

“Where?”

“The center square, sir.”

 _Oh, perfect_.

Jyn has always been hot-headed, difficult to temper. He’s always known that he will never be able to wring it out of her completely, this thirst for violence, for self-destruction. So instead of trying, he _taught_ her. Years of it, raising her up at his side to be his second after the passing of her parents, and there is no one between here and the Holy City that could best her with fists or blades or blasters, he would swear to it.

 _Some blind old monk_. Seven’s words come back to him and he picks up the pace, rounding the corner to the central square. A small crowd has gathered, drawn by the unusual excitement, but Two is hanging at the fringes and sees him coming. A moment later the crowd is parting before his cries— _make way for the Governor!—_ and Baze shoulders his way through to the middle ring.

Six is flat on her back in the dirt, panting and making no move to rise, not even for him. There’s a lovely purple shiner developing on the left side of her face, and she holds her left arm to her chest protectively—dislocated, he can see at a glance. Not broken. She’s had worse.

“What is the meaning of this?” he barks, not at her, but at the man standing across the circle from him. He doesn’t even look the slightest bit flushed, standing erect with his staff held before him and his head tilted just slightly to one side, like a dog searching for the sound of a rabbit in the undergrowth. Bypassing Six entirely, Baze walks straight up to him and stands but an inch away, nose to nose, glaring down into milky blue eyes as fiercely as he can muster. The robed stranger doesn’t even flinch. “I asked you a question.”

“Oh, were you directing that at me?” the holy man inquires, and the innocence in his tone is laced with amusement. The back of Baze’s neck burns with contained fury. “Forgive my lapse, it is difficult sometimes with the, eh…” He waves an idle hand, gesturing to his face.

“I am addressing you, sir, and if you did not know it before, you know it now. What reason do you have for attacking one of my people? In the street, no less, like a common bandit?”

The irony of this last remark is not lost on him, but the monk does not seem abashed. “ _Attacking_? Whills forfend, Governor—it _is_ Governor Ma, is it not?” He reaches out and pats Baze on the chest as if feeling for something. When Baze knocks his hand aside abruptly, his knuckles graze the badge of office pinned to his chest, and he smiles. “Such an honor to make your acquaintance. I regret it was not under better circumstances. Please, allow me to buy you a drink and we can come to an understanding—cold tea, or perhaps some sake?” He gestures one arm wide, enormous black sleeve swinging, and Baze follows the gesture to the tea house’s sign swinging gently in the breeze.

At the shift of his focus, the assembled crowd seems to shrink in on itself, eyes cast aside and feet shuffling in the dusty street. Baze comes back to himself. _You are not a bandit any longer—you are their Governor. You must set an example._ To insult a holy man on pilgrimage would be a grave offense, particularly in a small backwater town like this. Putting Jyn out of his mind, Baze inclines his head and steps back, relaxing his stance.

“I would be honored, Guardian…?”

“Chirrut. Chirrut Îmwe. Please.” He smiles, all gums, teeth gleaming like pearls against the clever curve of his lips. “After you.”

///

Chirrut tastes like skin and sweat, like the dust that settles heavy over Goose Town when the summer storms have rolled away to rage on the horizon. Baze drags his tongue along the groove of his thigh and settles there. It is a good place. On his belly in his shirtsleeves, feet hanging off the end of the mattress, he dips his nose into that crease and inhales deep. Exhales.

Above him, spread-eagled, Chirrut turns his head on the pillow and twists his wrists, testing the give of his bonds. The silk creaks beneath his strength. Bazer wonders what would happen, if he were to break free. He could, he has no doubt of that—Chirrut may be slighter than Baze, but he is strong and swift, like a sudden gale whipping up in the desert flatlands to beat at the mighty mesas to the west. And he is graceful, too, bowing in the wind, an ancient tree with roots that sink far deeper than Baze could ever dig. If Baze were smart, he would be afraid of him. But no one has ever accused him of being _that_.

His fingers leave red prints behind when he grips Chirrut’s inner thigh, the soft flesh of his buttocks. The angle is a bit odd, with his legs stretched out flat on the bed, but he lifts Chirrut’s bollocks out of the way and nuzzles beneath, laving him to slickness with his tongue.

The first sound escapes him. A soft, breathy whine, high up in the back of his throat. Baze looks up the length of his body, admiring its beauty—its soft, golden planes, its flush, its gleam of sweat. His body is largely hairless, a symptom of his heritage, but there is hair around the base of his cock, and Baze scrapes his nails through it like an unkind brush, thumb to the base to feel Chirrut’s thudding heartbeat. Slick wells up and drips onto his belly, and he rubs his thumb through that, too, bringing it to his mouth to taste. Chirrut’s whole body shudders and goes still.

He likes to take his time. Everything about Chirrut is quick—quick to laugh, quick to fight, quick with his sharp, clever tongue. Quick to kiss back, when Baze first cracked. So Baze pulls back. Baze drags his heels, even when every particle of him screams to do otherwise. He does not touch Chirrut’s cock, but he rolls his balls in his hand with a gentle touch, and blows a thin, cool stream of hair across his heated skin.

“Beautiful,” he whispers, even though Chirrut cannot hear him. The plugs Baze put into his ears have seen to that. But he can feel his breath, and his lips when Baze lowers them to murmur against his thigh. He may not understand the words, although he pretends that his skin is sensitive enough to parse those minute vibrations; but he can feel the _intent_ , the softness in Baze’s tone, and his thighs tremble against the mattress as Baze whispers sweetness into his skin.

It seems an even trade. Chirrut enjoys the more submissive role, enjoys the muting of his other senses so that touch may be the only one he recognizes. He enjoys the sting and scratch of a harsh touch, the control Baze has over him in these moments, and Baze understands that this is a gift. So he gives back in the only way he knows.

“Exquisite. Like porcelain. Sculpted by the Whills themselves, surely.”

Baze has never been the praying kind, but even he knows how blasphemous this must be—worshipping the flesh of a mortal man. No Force has ever moved him yet, but the sheer magnanimity of Chirrut’s presence is a snare around his neck. One he has willingly placed there.

His thumb strokes the dark skin behind Chirrut’s balls and pulls, gently, to the side. His skin still carries the tang of salt and sweat, a day’s worth of hard labor, but here he is fresh and smooth, smelling of the rosewater that Jyn pretends she doesn’t keep among her belongings. When Baze presses the edge of his nail here, just here, where the skin furls and tightens against intrusion, he feels the slight residue of oil. He smiles. Chirrut has come prepared.

“Clever man,” he says to Chirrut’s hip, and he pushes forward, breaching the entrance to his body in one smooth slide. Inside he is soft, but not slick—it’s been a little while. Baze pictures him in his tiny, ramshackle apartment behind the tea house, wiping the day’s sweat away but not bathing, not yet. He knows that Baze likes to taste his sweat on him. But he would dip a cloth in water nonetheless, scented with rose oil, taking his time… back and forth, and _in_ , first with the cloth and then with his fingers. His face would be flushed, hands shaking as he reached for the oil. As he touched himself intimately, and thought of Baze. As Baze thinks of him.

As Baze has always thought of him.

///

“I don’t like him.”

Baze spares a glance for her, but holds his tongue—Two has that look on his face, like he’s spoiling for an argument, and Baze will give it to them. Better they work out their aggression on each other, here in the safety of the Governor’s mansion, than roam the streets getting into fights. They are all Governor’s men, now. It’s time they started acting like it.

“Of course you don’t like him,” Two says before the silence can stretch to awkwardness. He scrapes at the scruff on his cheek with his fingernails. He ought to shave. _Tomorrow morning,_ Baze thinks. _I’ll take the boys to the barber, see them all cleaned up._ “He dislocated your shoulder. Not like you didn’t deserve it.”

Three and Seven share furtive glances across the table, but don’t intervene. Jyn’s rivalry with Two is legendary among their crew, and they’ve all learned time and time again to stay out of the way when the bullets start to fly.

“ _Deserve_ it?” Six demands. It’s hard not to think of her as _Jyn_ when she’s like this, hair let loose and wild around her face, eyes flashing like grey fire, just like her father’s. “He tripped me deliberately!”

Two rolls his eyes. “He’s _blind_ , you idiot. You ran into him, and he reacted. That was fair. That was _just_. But you couldn’t leave it at that, could you? You had to go shoving him around, acting all high and mighty, and then he handed your ass back to you.” He smacks his lips on another mouthful of noodles. “ _Deserved_. Like I said.”

Jyn’s chair scrapes against the floor with a godawful shriek as she stands, looming over the table. But she doesn’t lunge for Two, though Baze half-feared she would. Instead she glances at _him_. Baze looks back calmly, lifting his glass to his lips. He is not her father to be scolding her, or her mother to be changing her nappy. She is Six, a thief, a liar, a bandit, and smart as a damned whip. She will choose whether to answer to him first, or to herself. She is always choosing, every day a new direction. Baze no longer remembers how to feel surprised at the odds.

“You spoke with him,” she says, almost accusatory. “In the tea house, all _proper_. What did he say?”

Baze lets the question stew a little before enunciating, “About?”

“About _me_. Or about—about us.” She jerks her head like a sandpiper, gesturing at the dinner table with her chin. Seven sits back in his chair, like he’s readying his escape, but she pins him to it with a glare. “He knows something’s up. I can feel it.”

“I would be disappointed if he didn’t.” Baze stands and throws his napkin on the table with finality. “You will not be brought before me in court, Six, and that is all that matters. Do not concern yourself with Chirrut Îmwe anymore. Do you understand?”

Jyn’s lips grow thin and white and invisible. Slowly, she bows her head and sits. “Yes, Governor.”

It will not be enough to satisfy her forever. But today, the dam will hold. He nods to them all, more a farewell than a dismissal, and leaves the table. He has a letter to write.

///

Baze thinks of the first time he had Chirrut. He had just sent Two and Three after Krennic’s lookalike, and he was waiting in the dark of his office—Whills damn it, the _waiting_. He was a patient man, but some things were more difficult to bear than others. The suspension of his patience, strung thin, waiting on the words and deeds of other men—no matter how he trusted them—was the most difficult of all.

When Chirrut appeared as if by magic, eyes seeming to glow in the faint light of the candles on his desk, Baze had felt something slip in to ease that tension. It still pulled within him, like a blade buried deep in his soft, vulnerable parts, but with Chirrut near, the keen edge turned away. He could breathe. He could see, even in the dark, the end of the road. _We are close. So close. Just a little farther…_

Chirrut knew. The plan had been _his_ , the steps laid out were _his_. He was not here to refine the details, though at first Baze mistook that as his purpose. He was here to distract him. To soothe him. With his clever, lilting words, his little twist of a smile, like a man who knew a secret.

Baze fucked him over the desk in the small hours of the morning, silent, blood coursing through him like a river swollen with springtime. He gripped bruises into the back of Chirrut’s neck. He rode him with only the slightest preparation, until his knees gave out and his ass was red and tender, and still it was not enough. There was a hunger waking in him, a hunger that only Chirrut could subsume, only Chirrut could fold into himself and devour until it was nothing, not even the weight of command on Baze’s shoulders dragging him down. Chirrut breathed his mantras, dragged his fingernails across the surface of the desk, and when the hot candle wax dripped onto his bare shoulders with every gutwrenching thrust, his soft, rasping breaths were absolution to Baze’s ears.

He is rough with him still, sometimes, but lately he has found his feet wandering a softer path. Silk to bind his wrists, instead of rope. Lips on his throat and his thighs instead of teeth. Chirrut asks, sometimes, to be marked, and Baze is happy to provide. But that _hunger_ , that impossible, disparate ache, is slower to raise its head these days. What he feels tonight is not that gnawing ache, but a deep delight, a strange erotic joy to feel the wholeness of warm, bare skin instead of blood and marrow. Krennic has blown himself to bits, and tonight, Goose Town rejoices. Baze will have his reward.

He slicks his cock with oil and wipes his hand on the sheets, fetching a knife from the desk. The silk parts easily for the blade. When Chirrut feels his legs go free, he curls them up, uncertain—but Baze takes hold of his knees and spreads them wide, forcing his thighs up and back, and the silk comes around again, binding his legs back to expose him. His chest heaves for breath, and his tongue flicks out to wet his lips. The vulgarity of this pose excites him, like it excites Baze. He smiles and drags an open palm down the back of his thigh.

 _Smack._ Chirrut’s whole body jerks with it, with surprise more than pain. Baze knows how to strike to maximize the ache, and how to strike the loudest sound with the softest touch. Even through his earplugs, Chirrut heard the crack of flesh on flesh, and now he quivers in the aftermath, anticipating a keener sting.

Baze obliges him. _Crack_. This time he hits a little harder, and Chirrut’s skin is definitely reddening under the force of his hand. He drags light fingernails down the back of his thigh and Chirrut trembles.

“Exquisite.” _Smack_. “If I spoke all the languages in the galaxy, _tiánxīn_ , I could not tell you what I feel for you.”

A gentler tap, this time, to his outer hip, and then he braces himself over Chirrut, looming unseen, unheard. His chest feels tight and uncertain—not for this, but for the weight of his own silence. Words spoken to deaf ears mean nothing. They are like ash in his mouth, the leftovers of someone else’s cigarette. But he cannot say them when Chirrut’s ears are unstoppered; they stick in his throat, or he swallows them down, always afraid, always turning away. He is a fox forever running from its hounds.

But Chirrut will not chase forever. They move around one another, two planets trapped in orbit—but one day a meteor will come, or the sun’s drag will shift, and Chirrut will be gone, back across the desert after his precious _Force_. And Baze knows, he _swears_ he will not follow him.

If Chirrut feels the melancholic shift in the air, he does not betray it. He shifts restlessly on the bed, thighs squeezing together, but he still when Baze touches him, a gentle palm to his abused skin.

“Softly, my dearest.” He presses the words to Chirrut’s sternum. Shuts his eyes. One-handed, he grips Chirrut’s left wrist, feeling the pulse that beats brutally beneath his skin, and with the other he takes himself in hand and pushes in. Slow, steady, implacable. Chirrut goes tense and still in that way he does on the cusp of battle, centering himself around the intrusion. And then exhales, the corners of his mouth stretched around the glint of teeth.

Baze bites him. Hard, on the neck, so the sting will distract him from down below where Baze splits him open like unripe fruit. And for the first time, Chirrut cries out.

“ _Dà ren—!”_

The skin gives beneath his teeth but does not break, and when he lifts his head, an angry purple-red smear mars the perfect sunshine-smoothness of his skin. Like the drag of a lady’s mouth. Baze presses a thumb there, right at the edge of his esophagus. A slight shift of his hand and he would be able to stop his breath so easily. But Chirrut has not given his permission, so he withdraws, palm sliding down to his chest. The harsh bend of his knees makes it difficult to get a good angle, but he plants his hand there nonetheless, gets a good grip on the firm, fleshy muscle and pins him to the mattress.

“Wild thing,” he murmurs, and moves. _Hard_. The smack of skin on skin fills the room, and pleasure claws its way up his spine, rooting out the sting of regret from his gut. Even if Chirrut _could_ hear him, the wail he lets out would have drowned out the sound of his voice as Baze whispers, “Tonight, at least, you are mine.”

///

“I have a proposition.”

Chirrut cocks his head at him across the table. If he were any other man, his eyes would be boring holes into Baze’s chest. As it is, the weight of his focus is almost palpable, and Baze finds himself holding his breath as he waits for the monk’s response. “I will hear it, of course, my friend.”

The strangest thing is that he means it. Baze isn’t used to having _friends_. Jyn is the closest thing he has to family, the only daughter he’ll ever have, and yet Îmwe has cleaved to him as a long-lost brother might, or a newlywed leaving their ancestral home to live out their days with their spouse. Baze isn’t quite sure what to make of it, yet, but he hopes this familiarity will endear his request to him.

“I want you to take Six on as a student.”

Chirrut blinks slowly and steeples his fingers in front of his chin. “She is welcome to join my morning class in the cotton mill every day, of course.”

Baze gives a brusque shake of his head before he remembers Chirrut can’t see him. “No. In private.” He pulls a purse from the inside of his jacket and places it on the table between them. The upper floor of the tea house is deserted—by now all of Goose Town knows that the governor likes to meet with their holy man at this time of day. They are given plenty of privacy. “I will pay you, of course.”

Chirrut cocks his head at the clink of coins, but makes no move to take them. “Why?”

He is prepared for this. “I have trained her as well as I know how, but you are the better warrior by far. I would have her be undefeatable.”

“Why?” Chirrut says again, unfazed. His mouth flickers just slightly at the sound of Baze’s frustrated sigh, and that irritates him even more.

“She is my second, my first line of defense. She must be prepared at any time to take up my mantle—”

“The governor’s mantle?” Chirrut interrupts, voice mellow with idle curiosity. “You know as well as I that the line of succession is in the hands of… other people.”

Baze bites back another sigh. “I will not be a governor forever—”

“No?” He laughs softly at Baze’s disconcerted silence. “I am not surprised, my friend, only glad to hear you say so. You are not the sort of man who belongs in politics, I think.” He leans forward in his chair and picks up his tea without having to guess at his cup’s location. “You are too full of fire to remain in such a dull and drudgesome career—I can feel the passion in you just by sitting near. You are the sort of man who needs... _excitement_ in his life.”

“Master Krennic provides more than enough, on that score.”

“Krennic aside.” He flicks his fingers, unconcerned. “He is a temporary enemy. Boredom lasts far longer, and is more difficult to root out. But we were discussing Six.” He sips from his cup and folds one leg over the other, elegant. “I will agree to train her—on _one_ condition.”

“Name it,” Baze declares.

“Answer me this one question: are you the bandit known as Pocky Zhang?”

Baze’s heart stops. _He knows. How? **How** could he possibly know? _His throat is dry as dust, in spite of the pot of tea he split with Chirrut. He doesn’t think he could answer even if he wanted to—even if he knew what in the name of the Force to _say_. So he doesn’t say anything. Just stands, chair legs scraping the floor, and leaves the tea shop, hands trembling and his veins flushed with anger and confusion.

_He knows, and we are all doomed._

///

Sweat cools on his skin just as quickly as it rises, and Baze gasps for breath, bowing his head as the tremors of orgasm shudder through him. Chirrut is still hot and tight around him, still quivering on the edge—when Baze smears a messy, open-mouthed kiss to his cheek he turns his head toward it, sobbing for air, and his lashes are wet with sweat and unshed tears. “ _Tiánxīn_ ,” Baze whispers, and reaches down.

He’s barely formed a fist around Chirrut’s length before the monk loses himself. He cries out silently into the empty air, curling into Baze’s arms, face a rictus of pleasure—or maybe pain. The lines have long ago been blurred. His cock is still jerking and spitting out drops of white as Baze reaches up and tugs on his bonds, undoing the knots with precision and stroking his trembling limbs, softly at first and then more firmly where the muscles are tight and sore. Chirrut shivers and unwinds, mouth going slack. His lips are slick and cherry-red as they pull into a satiated smile.

“Mmm…”

The earplugs are last. Baze withdraws them carefully, then strokes the outer shell of each ear with his thumbs. “How do you feel, dear one?”

Chirrut exhales long and slow, reaching for him. “Delicious.”

Baze allows him this—his hands exploring, refamiliarizing themselves with his body, the feel of him in the wake of sexual congress—and then climbs from the bed to attend the washbasin. The water in its pitcher is warm from sitting by the fire, and he pours it in a steady stream into the bowl, silver glinting in the low light. He wipes himself down first, perfunctory, then returns to Chirrut’s side.

“Face me,” he murmurs. When Chirrut obeys, Baze carefully wipes his face clean of sweat and tears, then his throat and chest. His sternum still rises and falls rapidly, and when he presses his palm there, he can feel Chirrut’s heartbeat thundering beneath bone and flesh. Chirrut’s brow creases.

“Baze?”

“Mm.” He wrings out the cloth and moves to his belly, as if turning away from Chirrut’s voice will deflect it.

“Something is weighing heavily on you tonight. May I know what it is?”

Baze bends his head to his task and does not answer right away. When Chirrut’s stomach is clean, he takes his softening cock in his free hand, wiping delicately beneath the foreskin before rinsing the cloth once more. “Knees apart, _tiánxīn_ ,” he says absently, forgetting himself. Pet names and endearments belong to the banked coals of foreplay and the raging bonfire of consummation. He is soft with him in the aftermath, always, but keeps his tongue in check.

Chirrut notices—his nostrils flare on an inhale, and the softness of his mouth grows firm—but he draws his knees up and apart as instructed, making room for Baze’s cloth. Baze refuses to have this conversation while he’s wiping his own cum from another man’s backside, so he clings to silence until he’s done, and then he takes the bowl and cloth to the door for the maid and puts on a fresh nightshirt before returning to bed. Chirrut is waiting for him, of course. Naked and loose-limbed in spite of the wrinkle on his brow, ready for Baze’s nearness and his touch. He feels a pang of guilt at not being quicker—Chirrut is always anxious for comfort in the wake of orgasm, regardless of how hard Baze does or does not push him.

Baze lays propped up on the pillows and pulls Chirrut to him. Naked, still, he curls willingly into his heat, and Baze pulls the bedclothes up to Chirrut’s waist, busying himself with petting the rest of him. Firm, gentle strokes of his palms, the occasional rumbling hum in his chest for Chirrut to hear. His ears are often tender after being plugged, sensitive to loud noises, so when he finally speaks it’s only a whisper.

“I am finding it hard to believe it’s over.”

Chirrut’s spidersilk lashes graze his throat as he blinks. “You mean Krennic.” He slips a hand into Baze’s open shirt to feel his chest. “The grenade seemed fairly final to me. And you took care of his body double.”

“I know he’s not coming back,” Baze says, struggling to keep his tone mild. Chirrut will be fragile for a little while longer, and Baze still owes him his respect, even after their fun has been had. “But this fight… has been long. I did not expect any of this, or ask for it.”

“And yet you bore the burden gladly. You are a hero to the people, Zhang. Your face will not easily be forgotten.”

Baze wrinkles his nose and touches his own cheek. Smooth and unmarred, save for the lines of age and weather, and the short goatee he keeps neatly trimmed around his mouth. It comes in handy that his alter ego, the rough and trigger-happy Pocky Zhang, is afflicted with the scars of sand plague—people are less likely to give him a second look, even when he forgets himself and slips from highbrow political speech to the bandit’s cant that comes so much more easily to his lips. And, if he is very lucky, it will make it easier to slide back into obscurity when all of this is over.

“That’s not my name anymore."

“No? Are you staying on as Governor after all, then?” His voice is lighter now, amused, which means he’s coming out of subspace in record time, but Baze doesn’t drag himself away just yet. “I thought you’d be out of here as soon as Krennic was rid of.”

“I have no intention of staying longer than need be,” Baze says quietly. “If it weren’t for Seven’s injury I would have been out of here tonight.”

Chirrut goes still. “I see.”

“I’m done with that life. It was good, for a while, but I can’t—” He stops, thinking of Six. The fire in her eyes as she faced down Krennic’s laughable excuse for a magistrate, her own knife buried in her stomach. Thank the Whills Chirrut had intervened. By the time Baze had gotten there, it would have been too late. And Seven with the bullet hole in his mouth, spitting blood onto the sand, still fighting. “They deserve better than I can give them.”

“You gave them a home,” Chirrut argues. “You gave them a livelihood. That’s more than many can say.”

Baze just shakes his head. “I am taking Six to Jedha City for an education. The others can do as they please—I will give them enough of a stipend to get by, and they can scatter to the four winds. Or follow, if that is what they wish.”

Stillness again. “Jedha City.”

“That’s right. The best education on the planet.” He tells himself that it’s mere coincidence that Chirrut will return there, too, after his aborted pilgrimage has been carried out.

“Will you look for me?” Chirrut asks softly. “At the temple?”

His hand splays flat to Chirrut’s back, and he holds his breath for a count of three. “Do you want me to?”

“Of course. You are my friend, Baze. And,” he adds, mouth curling up, “I am eager to see what sort of man you are under all the pretense.”

Baze snorts. “I am as you see. As you _feel_.” His heartbeat thuds against his sternum, and against Chirrut’s hand on his chest. “You are the only one in this miserable, backwater town who knows my name, my story. Do not pretend I am a stranger to you.”

Chirrut hums and rests his head against his chest. “No. Not a stranger.”

No further plans are made or discussed, but the tension in the room and in Baze’s chest begins to dissipate. And when he strokes Chirrut’s skin, long after the glow of orgasm has faded, Chirrut snuggles closer instead of readying himself to leave. It aches in the best possible way.

“Stay the night,” Baze murmurs after a while. The fire is down to glowing coals, and the incense burned out ages ago. Light spills in from the town outside his window, a rusty orange traced in barred, luminescent stripes along the bedclothes and up over Chirrut’s bare shoulder. He traces their patterns and listens to the change in Chirrut’s breathing.

“It would not be proper,” he demurs at last, handing his own words back to him without malice, “for me to be seen leaving the Governor’s mansion in the morning hours.”

“Ah… but I will not be a governor for much longer.”

This is a foolish thing he is doing. Chirrut is not one of his underlings to be trained and ordered and given a number to supercede their names. He has given his vows to something Baze cannot possibly comprehend. And yet…

Chirrut raises up on one elbow and kisses him. Not the swift, fond parting kiss he usually bestows before slipping back to his rooms in the cover of night—a warm kiss, open-mouthed and wet, _demanding_. The sort of kiss Baze gives him when he has Chirrut on his back and laced to the bed with rope. Baze accepts it, welcomes it, and can’t help the tiny moan that escapes when Chirrut tears himself away.

“I will stay the night,” he whispers, pale eyes glowing, “on one condition.”

Baze growls, remembering the last time Chirrut gave him such an ultimatum. “You already know my name. You know everything about me—how easy it would be for you to ruin me! What else could I possibly give you that you have not already taken from me?”

In spite of his words, he is not aggrieved, only longsuffering. Chirrut straddles his lap and smiles. “It is a long and weary road ahead for me, my friend. Across many a wide and unforgiving desert, full of thieves and bandits.” He ignores Baze’s snort and presses on. “I am a skilled warrior, but there are dangers that lie in wait that even I may fall prey to.”

“Cease this prattling and get to the point.”

“Come with me. You and Six and the others, if they wish. Escort this holy man to his shrine, and you will be richly rewarded when we return to Jedha City.”

“When will you learn, old man, that I do not seek _riches_?”

“Ah. Well, if it is not wealth you desire, perhaps I can find something _else_ to tempt you with.”

Baze groans and pulls him down against him, muffling Chirrut’s laughter against his half-open shirt. “You are absurd,” he accuses, even as Chirrut wriggles the bare length of his body against his. “And you drive a hard bargain—”

“Ha!”

“ _Hush_. I accept.”

Chirrut stills a third time. But now, when he lifts his head, he is smiling. “You do?”

“It’s bad luck, isn’t it, to refuse the request of a holy man?” Baze fingers the curve of his ass and gets a wrinkled nose and a quick, shivering exhale in response. “Never let it be said that I was not the most devout governor of Goose Town.”

“Devout,” Chirrut snorts, but he lays back down agreeably enough. “You will certainly be remembered for _that_ , though I don’t know why. You are devoted to your cause and your people, and no other thing.”

Baze rests his hand very gently on the top of Chirrut’s head. His hair is kept short and neat, and he can feel the heat of his scalp beneath the soft, dark strands. “No other thing? Do you really believe that?”

Chirrut hums. “How would you amend it, then?”

 _You_ , Baze thinks. _I am devoted to you_. But he does not say it aloud, only cradles the nape of his neck and thinks, rather more optimistically than before, about the future.

“I suppose you’ll have to wait and see.”

**Author's Note:**

>  _Tiánxīn_ : sweetheart.  
>  _Dà ren_ : a title of respect to a superior. (Thank you evocates for this one!!)  
> Also, Jyn and co. have code names based on the LtBF film; Jyn is Six, Bodhi is Seven (because glasses), Kay is Two (of course), and Cassian is Three. Thanks to the Ragethirst crew for encouraging this bizarre creation.


End file.
